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EUROPEAN ACADEMIC RESEARCH
Vol. III, Issue 6/ September 2015
ISSN 2286-4822
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A Comparative Study of Word Stress in Persian and
Urdu Language
SHUMAILA BARI
Lecturer (English)
COMSATS Institute of Information Technology
Lahore, Pakistan
Abstract:
This paper attempts to study the word stress patterns in Urdu
and Persian language comparatively. For this purpose, previous
research works over Urdu and Persian word stress are taken into
consideration. Important features of both languages’ word stress are
analyzed through the previously done research works. In the end a
conclusion is drawn on the basis of the comparative study regarding
similarities and dissimilarities in Urdu and Persian word stress.
Key words: Word stress, syllable stress, syllable structure, moraic
weight, extrametricality, headedness at foot level, headedness at word
level, boundedness.
Introduction
Persian and Urdu are considered to be quite similar to each
other. This assumption is based on the fact that a large
vocabulary of Urdu is borrowed from Persian language. Both
languages fall under the group of languages called Indo-Iranian
Languages. Having long historical ties, both of the languages
share a great degree of similarities in respect of their writing
script, vocabulary and pronunciation. But the basic motivation
behind this research paper is to explore the similarities and
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differences in word stress pattern of both languages. In
linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to
certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or
sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic
prominence inside the syllables. The word accent is sometimes
also used with this sense. The stress placed on syllables within
words is called word stress or lexical stress, which is going to
be the main topic of discussion in this study.
Literature Review
Syllable stress is an important feature of many languages. It is
realized in various ways in different languages of the world.
According to Lars O Dyrud, "Fundamental frequencies (F0),
duration and intensity are often common correlates of syllable
prominence".
In Urdu, the simplest way of stress assignment in HindiUrdu is explained by Hussain (1997). Hindi-Urdu is an Indo
Aryan language. Although Hindi and Urdu are different
languages yet they share similar behaviour in many phonetic
aspects. Masica's (1991) view about Hindi-Urdu is that they are
different literary styles based on the same linguistically defined
sub-dialects. Hindi-Urdu falls in the group of NIA languages so
they are mora times rather than stress timed. Stress in Urdu is
also marked by the syllable weight. The syllable having the
heaviest weight from right to left is marked as stressed.
Hussain (1997) in his study of Urdu stress correlates lists the
effects of stress.
1. The results indicated a longer duration and lower F0(due to
alignment of a low tone)for stressed vowels.
2. Also high vowels got less intense and low vowels got more
intense with stress.
3. The quality of the vowel changed with stress or unstressed
vowels.
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Shumaila Bari- A Comparative Study of Word Stress in Persian and Urdu
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4. The closure, voicing during closure and aspiration on onset
stops increased with stress.
5. The duration of closure of aspirated coda stops decreased
with stress. Much work has been done on Persian stress.
Chodzko (1852) was the first linguist who discussed Persian
stress in detail. According to Chodzko (1852)the stress on
final syllable in simple, compound nouns, adjectives and in
nominal verbs. For different verb tense, different rules are
applied."It is certainly safe to say that in modern. Persian
the verb has recessive stress. This is in sharp contrast with
the noun where the stress tends to be near the end of the
word", Ferguson (1957,pp 26-27)Another findings on
Arsalan Kahnemuyipour has discussed Persian stress patterns
(2003).He states, "Persian stress is assigned rightmost at the
phonological word level, left most at the phonological phrase
level, right most at the intonational phrase level and left most
at the utterance level." MajidHayati in his research "A
Contrastive study of English and Persian stress says, "it is
widely agreed that in Persian ,stress is predominantly on the
final syllable of single word."
Stress in Urdu
The stress in Urdu is not fixed as it is in other languages. The
location of stress in Urdu is marked according to the weight of a
syllable. The syllable having the heaviest weight moving from
right to left is marked as stressed syllable in a word.
WORD
SYLLABLE
STRUCTURE
MORAIC
WEIGHT
tə.la'ʃ
cv.vvc
1.2
a.ba'.di
vv.cvv.cvv
2.2.1
There are two major types of stress primary and secondary
stress. In Urdu we find only the primary stress. No secondary
stressed syllables are present. For example
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Shumaila Bari- A Comparative Study of Word Stress in Persian and Urdu
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Word
MORAIC WEIGHT
fas'.le
3.1
xʊʃ.ɡə.var'
2.1.2
bər.daʃt'
2.3
The weight of vowels and consonants is represented by mora.
We can say that mora helps us marking the stress in Urdu.
Short vowels and coda consonants are mono moraic and are
represented by "u". Long vowels are bimoraic and are
represented by "u u". Long vowel and consonant are tri-moraic
and are represented by "u uu". The weight of the onset is not
calculated. In Urdu, the stress is marked only by calculating
the weight of rhyme of a syllable.
WORD
MORAIC WEIGHT
bʊl.va'.na
uu.uu.uu
əf.Ϫa.nɪs.tan'
uu.uu.uu.uuu
The final mora of the last syllable in a word is not calculated in
the weight. This is called extrametricality.
WORD
MORAIC
WEIGHT
EXTRAMETRICALITY
ab'.ʃar
3.3
uuu.uu<u>
ɪt.e.had'
3.2.3
uu.uu.uu<u>
Approximately 80% of the Urdu words follow this stress
algorithm but 20% behave differently. When affixes are added,
the stress patterns deviates from the algorithm. For example in
a word " af.rid'.gar ", the stress is on "rid" not on "gar".
Although "gar" has moraic weight of 2 but "gar" is a suffix so
stress shifts to the left. It is seen that affixes are treated
separately from the root. Root will always has a stress mark
but affixes may or maynot bear the stress like in "ab'.doz' ".
In some cases, two stressed syllables are observed like in
the example "ab'.gi'.na ".Here both the prefix and the root are
stressed. Compound words also show different stress pattern.
As compound words are a combination of two words so both the
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words are stressed and bear a primary stress mark. For
example" pə.let' fa'.rəm" and in "bə.laek' bord'.
As stress is marked on the basis of weight of the syllable
but there are some exception too. Some words contain multiple
stress marks without any consistent pattern. It is observed that
native speakers assign stress to a syllable which have the
plosives /b/ ,/p/, /d/, /d/, /t/, /t/, /g/, affricates /dj/, /t /,trill /r/, and
fricatives/s/,/z/..For example in words like" tər.'bə.tər' " , "bə'.bu'
a ". Long vowel also violates the rule of single stress in a word.
Long vowel become more prominent in a word hence becomes
stressed. Like in words "e'.ti.laf' " and "pu'.r ə m.pur' ". But in
some cases the stress is on alternate syllables like in words
"aes.o'.si.e'.ʃən" and " tər'.tə.ra'.hət."
Stress in Persian
It is an observed and proven phenomenon that when Persian
words are spoken in isolation, the strongest stress falls only on
one syllable and other syllables stay unstressed. Moreover, this
one and only stress tends to fall on the final syllable. To
understand it thoroughly, here are some of its examples:
Ketab‟ (book) ziba‟ (beautiful) madær„ (mother) name‟
(letter) mosâbeqe‟ (competition) divune‟ (crazy)
But there are certain exceptions to this rule one it comes
to the addition of inflectional endings, infinitives of verbs, some
suffixes etc. When these words are added to dictionary as
simple words, there occurs a shift of stress, for example:
mi‟-ræv-æm (I go) (verb) ketab-ha‟ (books) ziba-tær‟
(more beautiful) name-ræsan‟ (mail man) kitâb-í (bookish)
xaríd-am (I bought) (verb)
From this above mentioned picture of irregularities in
stress pattern of Persian at word level, one thing comes to the
surface that adjectives and nouns tend to have regular stress
pattern that is at the end of the word, for example: mu‟ (hair)
xub‟ (good) divune‟ (crazy).
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But when it comes to derivational suffixes, there is an
altogether shift in the stress pattern. In Persian, derivational
suffixes takes the stress, for example:
ketab-í (my book) bozorg-tár (bigger) divune-gí
(craziness)
Another feature of Persian at the level of compound
words is that the stress here also falls on the final syllable as a
compound word is taken as one word. Here are some of the
examples of this category: ketâb-xune‟ (book-house) bozorgmenésh (great-attitude) bad-báxt (bad-fortune)
And so, overall it can be concluded that in Persian final
syllable is the stressed one on word level. Verbs in Persian, as
mentioned through examples in the beginning, tend to show
inconsistent attitude of stress depending on their inflectional
categories but those are not part of the discussion here as it
becomes a phrase level phenomenon.
Role of Metrical Phonology in Stress Assignment in
Urdu and Persian
There are six parameters proposed by Goldsmith (1990) for
assigning stress patterns. With the help of these parameters
one can recognize stress algorithm of any language. These
parameters also play a vital role in assigning stress pattern in
Urdu and Persian languages. As the overall picture of Urdu and
Persian stress has been made clear above, so following is the
discussion on both Urdu and Persian stress assignment with
reference to those six parameters by Goldsmith;
1.BOUNDEDNESS
There are said to be bounded if it contains binary feet. Both
Urdu and Persian are unbounded stressed languages as it has
only primary stress and no secondary stress for example
"ab'.ru", "a.bad'.i " (Urdu) “Ketab‟ ”, “ziba‟ “ (Persian).
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2.QUANTITY SENSITIVE
The languages, in which weight of the syllable plays an
important role are quantity sensitive languages. In fact stress
is determined on the basis of weight of the syllable. Urdu is a
Quantity sensitive language as stress is assigned on the basis of
the weight of a syllable. Quantity sensitive languages are
always unbounded .e.g " a.xi'.rt" and the weight is 2.2.2.
On the other hand Persian is not a quantity sensitive
language. In Persian stress at word level is always fall on the
last syllable of a word, for example: mosâbeqe‟ (competition)
divune‟ (crazy).
3. HEADEDNESS at FOOT LEVEL
There are two possibilities for foot headedness. One is right
headed and the other is left headed. In the right headed foot the
rhyme on the right side is stressed ad in the left headed left
most rhyme is stressed. As Urdu is unbounded language with
no feet so headed at foot level cannot be determined.
But in Persian language the headedness at foot level is
always consistent as the stress is bound to fall on the last
syllable and so it is right headed at foot level.
4. HEADEDNESS at WORD LEVEL
The headedness at word level is either left or right. The one
which has the primary stress on the left foot is left headed and
the one having primary stress on the right foot is right headed.
In Urdu stress position is not fixed so headedness at word level
is inconsistent but in Persian as the headedness of the foot is
always right, so it is always right headed at word level as well.
5.DIRECTION of FEET FORMATION
The direction of feet formation can be right or left. As Urdu is
quantity sensitive and unbounded stress language so the
direction of feet formation is unpredictable but according to
Hussain (1997) in Urdu the direction of the weight assignment
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is from the right side so according to this direction of feet
formation in Urdu is from right side.
It is similar with Persian as well, because it is found
consistent with having right headed on both foot level and word
level so it is also found consistent having right to left direction
of feet formation.
6.EXTRAMETRICALITY
In Urdu, the last syllable of the word is extrametrical. The last
mora of the final syllable of the word is not included in the total
weight of the syllable. For example if the last syllable is VC and
moraic weight is "u u". After excluding the last mora the moraic
weight will be "u". The examples in Urdu are as follows.
WORD
EXTRAMETRICALITY
in.t.za'.mi
uuu.u.uuu.u<u>
dər.mi.jan'
uu.uu.uu<u>
Whereas, in Persian the feature of extrametricality is not found
at all, because of its consistent property of stress assignment
only on the final syllable.
Conclusion
From the above comparison and contrast of Urdu and Persian
in Metrical Phonology section, it can be concluded that the word
stress patterns of both languages share lesser degree of
similarities and more of differences. Though both languages are
unbounded, having only primary stress, but when it comes to
other features, there comes a wide variety of differences. Urdu‟s
word stress is inconsistent but Persian‟s is consistent one as it
always fall on final syllable of the word. Basing on this feature,
Urdu‟s headedness at word and foot level is not predictable but
Persian‟s is predictable because having stress on final syllable.
Furthermore, Urdu is a quantity sensitive language as weight
plays an important role in assignment of the stress while this is
not the case with Persian. Going further to the extrametrical
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feature, here again both languages show different attitude.
Urdu has extrametricality, while Persian do not have. Stress is
assigned depending on this extrametrical feature from right to
left, in Urdu language and so is the formation of the feet is also
determined as right to left. Though Persian language‟s feet
formation is also right to left but it do not depend on the feature
of extrametricality. Hence, Urdu and Persian can be called
partially similar and dissimilar to each other.
REFERENCES
Hussain, Sarmad,1997. "Phonetic correlates of lexical stress in
Urdu". Northwestern University, Illinois.
Shanza Nyyar. "Syllable stress in Urdu". Center for Research in
Urdu Language Processing.
Masica, Colin P.,1991. The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cambridge
University Press, Great Britain.
Lars O Dyrud, 1997."Hindi-Urdu: Stress accent or Non stress
accent?" University of North Dakota.
A. MajidHayati."A Contrastive Analysis of English and Persian
stress" Shahid Charman University Ahvas.
Ferguson,1957. "Word Stress in Persian". Language Journal Of
linguistic Society of America.
Arslankahnemuyipour 2003. "Syntactic categories and Persian
stress" National Language and Linguistic Theory.
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